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Dec.1,2011
Came across this article yesterday – about giving camp for Christmas. It’s not a new idea, parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles have given all or part of a summer camp experience to the children in their lives for decades. We even have a Christmas Gift Card to put under the tree or in a stocking .
On Christmas morning, when we unwrap our presents and open up the boxes, we see toys, or clothes, or jewelry, or maybe a giant flat-screen HD 3-D TV, or the iTouch, iPad, iPhone, iPod or the next iHavetohaveit electronic necessity that we never knew existed a year ago. And when we compare all of that to a flat little gift card for a summer at camp that could easily get lost in all the wrapping paper… well, the card looks about as impressive or important as Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree.
The most exciting moment in the life of most presents is when they’re first opened and they peer out of the box to shouts and screams of joy and excitement (if they’re lucky and they’re not socks or ties or fruit cakes 
Sure, it’s fun to use the iWhatever the first time and see what it can do and add new apps or games or movies. But, inevitably, the newness fades and it gets taken for granted and ultimately replaced by a brighter, shinier, newer iNextthing in another box on another day.
But camp for Christmas is a different story. The excitement might start when the box is opened, and then get forgotten about as the other, bigger boxes take the limelight that day. But as time goes by, Christmas morning memories begin to fade and the excitement about camp begins to build a little more each day and each week – because summer is getting closer!
Finally, months after the wrapping paper and boxes are thrown out and the tree is gone and the decorations are stored, the excitement builds to a peak as you sit in the car and drive up the winding road to camp – wondering if it’s around this curve or the next one!
And the excitement doesn’t end when you arrive – it’s just reaching a new level! Every day at camp there’s something new to do, some new challenge to face, some new skill to master, somebody new to meet, and something new to learn about somebody else or about ourselves.
Even though it seems like the fun at camp will go on forever, the term does come to an end. Before we’re ready. And it’s time to pack up and go home. There are tears and sadness, and even though we’re glad to see Mom and Dad and our friends from home, we want to be able to stay at camp, too. So we relive the excitement and we tell the stories and we look at the pictures and it’s almost as much fun as it was the first time!
For many of us, there’s next summer – and we can do it all again! For some of us, though, it’s time to move on and camp can only be a memory.
But what a memory! The laughter, the fun, the friends – and most importantly, the life lessons we learned about how to be independent and self-reliant. How to live and work with others. How to make a friend and how to be a friend. How to fall down, get back up, dust ourselves off and try again. (See Kids and Courage) And how to be there to help your friend get back up when he or she is the one who has fallen down.
But don’t take my word for it, ask somebody who grew up at camp if it made a difference in who they are today. See if they agree with what we’ve observed over 65 years of watching young people grow up: Camp is the gift that lasts a lifetime.
You’ve probably forgotten all about the flat little gift card that started this story – and that’s the point. The gift was never in the box.
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, or Happy Holidays! Whatever you celebrate, may you and your family have a safe, healthy and happy holiday season.
And remember, the best gifts are outside the box.
